Looking back on the Great Leap Forward

Frank Dikötter explains how the gradual opening of Chinese archives has revealed the appalling truth about Chairman Mao’s genocidal rule.

Blood on the tracks: a portrait of Mao adorns a freight train in Yuhsien County, Shansi Province, May 5th, 1958.In the People’s Republic of China, archives do not belong to the people, they belong to the Communist Party.

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